How to Stop Lubbock Restaurant Churn

It's great that Lubbock keeps getting new restaurants, but it's sad that we keep losing other ones.

Almost all restaurants, especially chains, start off with some fantastic ideas on food. It's not just the food, either; they put tons of money into developing that menu, the decor, the marketing and more. Then, they go out and find the cheapest help available.

There is one business* I know of that has a franchise fee of about $50,000, and a total investment of over $1 million dollars to open. This same business was paying their general managers a salary in the low 30s. This is just insanity. Why would you risk a million-dollar business to someone who would make more operating a fast food place?

Businesses hire help and keep them all as part-timers so they don't have to pay benefits. This help doesn't really care if they keep their jobs or not because they know there is a surplus of these jobs. Plus, the good help knows they can move up for a quarter more an hour somewhere else.

I very much understand economics, but if you want to put out a quality product, you're going to have to pay for quality people.

A friend of mine loves to say, "If you pay peanuts, you're going to get monkeys." I truly believe that one well-paid employee can accomplish what a whole bunch of low-paid part-timers could never do.

I have never heard of a restaurant going out of business because people just got tired of it. It's dirty restaurants with bad service that do not survive. Restaurants become this way because the business hasn't given the employees a reason to care.

If an owner can't invest in staff that takes pride in their work, they shouldn't even bother getting into the restaurant business in Lubbock.

*This particular business I'm basing this on has seen the error in their ways and at least invested in a quality General Manager